Complex Sentences - Worksheet

These English Teaching Resources are designed to help students understand and identify the different components of complex sentences. The worksheets provided are aimed at teaching the distinctions between main and subordinate clauses. The Main Clause Worksheet contains a series of complex sentences where students are prompted to underline the main clause. The main clause is defined as the central idea of the sentence that can stand alone as a simple sentence. Examples given include sentences where the main clause is accompanied by additional descriptive phrases, such as "The moon, shining like a light, was directly overhead."

Similarly, The Subordinate Clause Worksheet focuses on the subordinate clause, which serves to add extra information to the main clause. Students are tasked with reading complex sentences and underlining the subordinate clause within them. For instance, in the sentence "Steven, a year younger than me, was not allowed to go," the subordinate clause provides additional details about Steven. The worksheets also include exercises where students are encouraged to add their own subordinate clauses to given sentences, thereby creating their own complex sentences. This activity reinforces the concept that subordinate clauses enhance the main idea without being able to stand alone as complete sentences.